Killing off a popular TV character is a surefire way to get your show noticed. Of course, there are characters who are killed temporarily, with every intention of returning (Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example); characters who return later, with some crazy explanation, to improve the ratings (Bobby Ewing in Dallas); and others [...]

A few weeks ago, we gave you 21 countries that have only won a single Olympic medal. Now that the London Games are through, it’s time to update our list with the countries that netted their first-ever medal this summer, and the two countries that have now moved into multiple medal territory.
First-time medals
Bahrain
Getty Images
Bahrain thought [...]

Sandra Krautwaschl, of Graz, Austria, was astonished by the amount of plastic trash on the beaches of Croatia, where recycling is not done on the scale of her native country. She wondered what it would be like to not have all that plastic in her family’s daily life.
The Krautwaschl-Rabensteiners decided to try and live a [...]

LinkScroll down for today’s pictures & links.
Stunning Miniature Wonderland
Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany. This is not “tilt-shift” effect; these are real, incredibly detailed and meticulously put-together models: whole cities, working airports, including the largest model railway / railroad in the world:
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Today’s pictures & links:
Mind-Bending Cityscape
(“City in the Sky” by unknown Japanese artist, via, click to [...]

Nikola Tesla was born in Croatia on July 10, 1856, which is 155 years ago today. It’s a good day to take a little time and find out more about this extraordinary man.
Few inventors contributed more to advances in science and engineering in the early 20th century than Nikola Tesla. As one of the Fathers [...]

2,226 people assembled at a park in Mahwah, New Jersey, to form the largest smiley face composed of human bodies. This is nearly triple the current record, which was set earlier this year in Croatia:
Though officials from the Guinness Book of World Records were not on site, photos and counts from the night will be [...]

The town of Ston, Croatia, is protected by a wall three and a half miles long. This archaeological gem was built during the fifteen century while the region struggled for some margin of independence from the Ottoman Empire. It gradually decayed over time and was devastated by an earthquake in 1996, but restoration is presently [...]